Dear Faculty and Staff,

The opening of a new academic year has a way of ushering in change and this year is certainly no exception! President Garimella has accepted the presidency at the University of Arizona. This is a tremendous opportunity for him and he has my heartfelt, albeit bittersweet, congratulations. Our university has thrived under President Garimellaā€™s leadership and I am honored to have been appointed Interim President to further the universityā€™s advance on so many important fronts. You have all contributed to our accomplishments and I am eager to strengthen our collaboration and partnership on behalf of our great university. As I look forward I am filled with confidence and optimism. We are a strong institution with a rich 233-year history. We have a clear vision and goals. We have talented faculty and staff members and dedicated academic and administrative leadership teams. And, we care deeply about our university and each other. Our university is, and remains, a place for individuals committed to a thriving future for people and planet.

As we navigate this period of transition together, and as I ask of you each fall, please reflect on Our Common Ground values. Consider how you ā€˜liveā€™ them in your interactions with colleagues, how you model them for our students, and the ways in which you can incorporate them in your work. Now is also a good time to review our refreshed Academic Success Goals (ASG) and Amplifying Our Impact to find points of connection to guide your work.

Leadership Transitions

Please welcome Dr. Peter Newman, the new Dean of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources (RSENR), who joined our community on July 1. Peter comes to us from Penn State University where he served as Head of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management. Peter earned his Ph.D. in Natural Resources from RSENR and we are delighted to welcome him back to the Catamount family!

Iā€™d also like to thank Dr. Leslie Parise for her service as Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Leslie will be retiring at the end of the academic year. She joined the college in 2020 and has expanded the research base of the college, hired outstanding new faculty and chairs, and provided cutting-edge educational opportunities to our students. Weā€™ll celebrate Leslieā€™s many accomplishments next May, and weā€™ll share news regarding a national search for the next dean soon.

The Class of 2028

The federal FAFSA issues delayed the introduction of our newest class of Catamounts to you last spring, but Iā€™m delighted to introduce them now. We are projecting a class size of about 2,840. This talented group of students has an average weighted GPA of 4.0. Reporting students have an average SAT (EBRW) of 692 and SAT (Math) of 668. Vermonters make up 19% of the class and 50% of the class comes from outside of the New England region. Our students come from 47 states and 28 countries. While the numbers wonā€™t be firm until after add/drop, we are estimating that the class will be 15% BIPOC, 11% FGEN, and 2% international.

Thank you for all of your efforts to yield this incredible class. Whether you advised them on course selections, delivered a fascinating lecture on a Visit Day, drove the shuttle bus from their hotel to the Davis Center, explained their financial aid package, designed the swag that caught their eye, helped keep our buildings and grounds clean and beautiful, gave someone directions, supported the IT network and websites that kept them connected to us, or contributed to the many critically important administrative systems that make everything else possibleā€”your work was important to our success, and I appreciate it.

New and Continuing Initiatives and Activities

The summer provides us with an opportunity to develop plans for our new and continuing initiatives and activities and Iā€™m pleased to provide the following updates that reflect progress and provide a sense of whatā€™s to come.

Planetary Health Initiative

Our Planetary Health Initiative continues to gain momentum

  • Mark your calendars: the formal launch of ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ Planetary Health Initiative will take place 4ā€“5 p.m. on October 17 on the Andrew Harris Common (between the library and the Davis Center, the rain site is the Davis Center Atrium). The event will include speakers, tabling, locally sourced refreshments (maple creemees, anyone?), and an opportunity for you to make your personal planetary health pledge. Weā€™ll be announcing and promoting exciting new Planetary Health programs and highlighting ongoing Planetary Health activities at ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ and across Vermont. Most importantly, this event will provide an opportunity for our community to come together and formally embrace our leadership role in this critically important field.

  • In June, we issued a call for proposals for the Initiativeā€™s Seed Grant Program, which will support interdisciplinary planetary health research leading to the submission of a substantial external funding proposal. One proposal of up to $100,000 will be funded annually from FY25 to FY29. Pre-proposals are due September 27. Four proposals will be selected to advance to the next phase, which will include a day-long facilitated workshop on October 11, fall recess day, to more fully develop the proposal and build meaningful collaboration skills and abilities across disciplines and units.

  • In August, we announced the Initiativeā€™s Postdoctoral Fellows Program supporting interdisciplinary research at the intersection of human and environmental health. Two fellowships per year will be awarded in each of the next five years. Proposals should be submitted by September 30.

  • The Provostā€™s Office is investing in other campus-wide collaborations including engaging prospective undergraduate students through the Vermont Pitch Challenge, providing graduate student support, working with CELO to support service-learning courses centered on Planetary Health, and the development of a pollinator garden and related research activities with the Office of Sustainability.

  • The Planetary Health Working Group is developing a one-year action plan that will guide our 2024ā€“25 activities in the areas of building internal understanding, external engagement, research, curriculum, and ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ health and wellness.

  • Donā€™t forget the Planetary Health Summit sponsored by ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ā€™s Osher Center for Integrative Health, October 16 and 17. You can register here.

  • Stay tuned for information on a series of workshops to help build our collective understanding of what Planetary Health is, and the role each of us can play in advancing it. In the meantime, you can learn more on the Planetary Health website, which includes a link to join the Planetary Health listserv.

At an Academic Leadership Council Retreat last week, our deans shared updates on the exciting Planetary Health work in our colleges and schools. These efforts that are emerging organically reflect our depth, strength, and potential for significant impact in Planetary Health:

  • The Larner College of Medicine is combining 30 years of child health data with environmental and climate data to better understand the impact of a changing climate on childrenā€™s health.
  • The College of Arts and Sciences has submitted an NSF proposal to support a Climate Migration Modeling project.
  • The Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources is aligning one of its named professorships with Planetary Health.
  • The College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences is working to create a more efficient and resilient energy grid.
  • The College of Education and Social Services is working on a Community Schools Initiative with the state Department of Education and five Vermont schools bringing education, whole health, and social services together.
  • The Graduate College is partnering with my office on the postdoctoral fellows program.
  • The College of Nursing and Health Sciences is bringing its students to blue zones to explore the relationship between health and geography.
  • The Library has launched the ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ Press whose leaders have a deep commitment to Planetary Health.
  • The Grossman School of Business remains a leader in sustainability and social justice in the MBA space.
  • The Climate Kitchen in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is working to ensure that the planet stays healthy and everyone has a fair chance at a good quality of life, eating nutritious food and finding new ways to compost food.
  • The Patrick Leahy Honors College is building a civic engagement curriculum with a sustainability element. (ASG 1, 2, 3)

Fall 2024 Campus Climate

The climate on campus this fall may be challenging as students seek to express their views and make change related to the national election and the conflict in the Middle East. I met with small groups of students last spring and learned that they are seeking meaningful opportunities to engage in educational programming that provides both scholarly content and meaningful dialogue with students who hold different views. In response, we are developing fall and spring symposia to be supplemented by monthly programming that will run across the year. I hope youā€™ll encourage the students you work with to attend these events (a comprehensive schedule will be released soon). Thank you in advance for participating in this programming or for just providing space for our students to feel heard. If youā€™d like the support of an intergroup dialogue facilitator to help you navigate difficult conversations in your classroom, reach out to the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. (ASG 1.1, 1.2)

Presidential Lecture Series

The theme of the 2024ā€“25 University of Vermontā€™s Presidential Lecture Series will also contribute to creating a positive campus climate. This year, the university will explore the question of free speech. Who can, cannot, does, and does not speak in the public and private sphere? Speakers include Tom Sullivan, a leading scholar on the First Amendment (and ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ president emeritus!); Sigal Ben-Porath, author of Cancel Wars; Tarleton Gillespie, senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research New England; Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union and author of HATE: Why We Should Resist it with Free Speech, Not Censorship; Susanne Nossell, CEO of the free-expression advocacy group PEN America; and Aleksandra Gliszczynska-Grabias from the Polish Academy of Sciences, famous for her work in anti-discrimination law and ā€œmemory laws.ā€ Please visit the schedule of events, mark your calendars, and consider having your students attend what I am certain will be compelling discussions. (ASG 1.1, 1.2, 3.1)

Patrick Leahy Honors Collegeā€”Leahy Public Policy Forum

This fall, the Patrick Leahy Honors College will host the first Leahy Public Policy Forum. The forum is intended as an exchange of ideas and perspectives on major US public policy issues of the 20th and 21st centuries, especially those in which our friend Senator Leahy was closely involved during his impactful 48-year career in the U.S. Senate. The forum will take place October 1ā€“2 and feature a keynote address from Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss, along with panels on Vermontersā€™ perspectives on the war experience and the years of peace and progress in Vietnam since the conflict ended. We expect the Vietnamese Ambassador to the U.S. to attend in recognition of the senatorā€™s legacy. A schedule is available here. (ASG 1.1, 1.2, 3.1.)

Generative AI

AI presents enormous opportunities for our university, and our work to identify an institutional AI strategy continues. Two AI working groups are underway. The first is an internal group functioning as a clearing house of sorts focused on AI information-sharing across different university domains (admissions, research, ETS, accounting, etc.) to stay coordinated, cataloguing AI activity on campus, and considering the development of best practices and policies that will guide our AI activity as it unfolds. The second group includes a handful of university leaders and alums who are highly placed in the AI space at companies like Meta and Amazon Alexa. This group has a high-level strategic focus and is considering how AI will change higher education. Soon to come from the first working group: a communication to faculty to help you better understand the implications of the use of different AI apps. (ASG 1, 2, 3)

Open Scholarship

Sometimes called ā€˜open accessā€™ or ā€˜open science,ā€™ open scholarship is a broad term encompassing the swift and unrestricted sharing of scholarly work across disciplines. In the spring of 2023, ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ā€™s Faculty Senate passed a resolution calling on the colleges and schools to develop policies and procedures promoting open access sharing of scholarly output, and to review their incentive structures in hiring, reappointment, promotion, and tenure to ensure alignment with open scholarship. To build understanding on our campus we have developed FAQs about Open Scholarship (pdf), are working with our graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to participate in the curriculum to empower them with the knowledge and tools necessary to embrace open science practices, and we hope to have discussions in each of the colleges and schools to find opportunities to further the Faculty Senate resolution. (ASG 2.1)

¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ GO

¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ GO offers our incoming students opportunities to develop their awareness of global issues and connect with faculty, staff, and other ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ students before they begin their first semester. Building on the success of its 2023 inaugural slate of trips and programming, ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ GO offered a broad array of pre-orientation experiences throughout August. About 200 students participated in trips to Costa Rica, Iceland, Montreal, Vancouver, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, and local trips organized around the residential learning community themes. This year, the Planetary Health initiative shaped many of the offerings, including: exploring the links between culture, history and environment in Iceland, engaging with youth activism and climate change in Washington DC, and ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ Community programs in Vermont focused on Healing Ecology and Mindfulness, Compassion, and Planetary Health. Across all 21 programs offered this year, an emphasis on seeing and creating connections between health and the environment, between people and communities, invited new students to embrace ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ values for people and planet. I remain enormously grateful to the members of our faculty and staff who are leading trips. We need new trip ideas and leaders each year, so please reach out to Caitlyn Clark, the programā€™s director, if youā€™d like to participate. (ASG 1.2, 1.4)

Center for Community News

With a $7M investment from the James L. Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and others, ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ has launched a new university-wide Center for Community News (CCN) led by Dr. Richard Watts. The Center will advance research, programming, education, and advocacy for student reporting programs, which are playing an increasingly important role in reporting local news. ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ā€™s Center for Community News is the first and only organization in the country devoted to growing newsā€“academic partnerships. Iā€™m delighted that ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ is leading this critically important effort, and that students across the country will benefit from the impactful experiences Richard and his team have made possible for our students. You can read more about the work of the Center and the launch effort here. (ASG 1.2, 3.1)

Wellness

I hope you were able to attend the August 20 that featured whole health resources, health and wellness coaching, campus recreation opportunities, information on healthy campus dining options, healthy lifestyle tips from the Office of Sustainability, and more.

Help us recognize and celebrate employees who are on a wellness path by nominating them for a ¶¶ŅõĢ½Ģ½ Employee Wellness Champion Award. This is a great way to share amazing stories about the wellness activities of our peers. The is open until October 18.

Please visit the employee wellness section of the Osher Center for Integrative Health website to explore the many health and wellness activities and supports available to you. Last semester I participated in a guided wellness walk through Centennial Woods and was reminded of both the beauty of this resource, and how rejuvenating even a short walk through the woods can be.

Make the most of the last few days of summer and get ready for a glorious Vermont fall! Iā€™m looking forward to our work together this year.

Be well,
Patty